


Stick It Together

by gwyneth rhys (gwyneth)



Category: Fast Color (2019)
Genre: Dialogue-Only, Gen, Mother-Daughter Relationship, Parent-Child Relationship, Yuletide Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-25
Updated: 2020-12-25
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:07:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28301340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gwyneth/pseuds/gwyneth%20rhys
Summary: Sometimes, I read pages in it. When I was little, I liked the drawings with all the colors. But I never read about anyone with abilities like yours.Ruth and Lila share a conversation on their way to Rome.
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9
Collections: Yuletide 2020





	Stick It Together

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ellen_fremedon](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellen_fremedon/gifts).



> I hope this treat for Fast Color will be enjoyable.

\- I always disliked the way people put it when they talked about letting go of a child. They always say _you gave them up_ for adoption, or you gave them up to the system or a relative or something like that. Like you didn’t care, you were just giving them up the way you’d give up a habit or something. It seemed better to think of it as giving them _to_ something better. Because you know inside that you aren’t the one who can take care of them, not like they should be. So I gave you _to_ Bo, but it wasn’t because I _gave up_ on you. Or maybe I was just kidding myself, because I never wanted to think I could abandon someone I loved.

\- Because you said you weren’t safe. That’s why.

\- I wasn’t. Not for you, not for me. I’m telling you that now because I don’t want either of us to feel like we gave up on Bo. I know you worry that we left her there, left our home behind, that we ran away.

\- Maybe...she’s going _to_ something. Because she’s going to do something with her abilities so we can, too.

\- Remember you asked me if we were meant for something more? Maybe we are and that’s what she’s discovering by going to them. That’s what Bo can tell us.

\- I know you said they can’t because of her abilities, but I get scared those men could find a way to hurt her.

\- Even if they tried, she’s—well, she’s a very formidable woman. And your grandfather is there with her. 

\- Is he—is he a good guy?

\- Yes. I forgot that, for a while, when I was sick. When I went away, I turned my back on him, but I didn’t know that all these years he’s been trying to watch my back. That’s why he sent the money so we could take this trip. There’s a whole network of people, I think, connected to Bo and to him and now to Simona. It’s how we got ID, and how we got this passage. They’re all watching our back.

\- I’ve never seen so much water. It’s kinda...scary, I guess. We’re just this little ship and there’s nothing anywhere around us. What if they find the truck and find out where we went? We’ve never even met Simona, what if we get there and someone pretends to be her and it’s just the men who want to take us?

\- It’s scary, I know. None of this is familiar territory to me, either. I hope that—well. My dad lost Bo and me and you and now he’s got us back, a bit. He gave us to a safer life when I was a kid, I think he’s prepared to do what needs to be done, whatever Mom needs, whatever will see to our safety. That’s what happened when I was little, and I thought it would always stay that way. Us being broken apart. Since I came home, I’ve been figuring it out, you know: the only reason things stayed broken is because we didn’t really _try_ to fix them. We didn’t understand that we could. 

\- _You_ could. The way it rained everywhere we went. 

\- That was pretty cool, huh? 

\- And you can see the colors. I liked how they followed us all over the sky, but no one else could see them.

\- I can. Feel them, too, just the way you described.

\- But the world is really broken, Bo says. That’s way too big to fix, unless there’s a _lot_ of others like us. 

\- Won’t know till we get there, huh? You know, when punk rock first started, most of it was all about breaking things, tearing stuff down, changing things. All the old systems and beliefs. And punk spread and spread, all around the world people picked it up, changed it. It wasn’t just about music, it was more than that. 

\- So we’re...looking for the young punks who want to stick it together?

\- Yeah. Yeah, that’s what we can be. It’s too bad we had to leave the records behind, but maybe we’ll find them again—I’d like for you to hear what they have to say. Poly Styrene was biracial, like me, so she had a lot of reasons to want to shake things up. 

\- Are all the people with abilities Black?

\- That I definitely don’t know. Could be a big part of why we’ve stayed hidden for so long, though.

\- Are all of us with abilities women?

\- I don’t know that either. But I expect it might be the case. I hope so.

\- Me too.

\- When we come back, we should read the book together. We’ll have a different perspective on that history. 

\- Sometimes, I read pages in it. When I was little, I liked the drawings with all the colors. But I never read about anyone with abilities like yours.

\- I think that’s why Mom and Dad never knew how to help me—no one could know what they hadn’t ever seen before. I guess it’s going to be my story to write now. I’m glad you’re writing it with me.

\- I want to learn what else I can do. Like maybe they’ll know where we’re going if I can do more than take things apart and put them back together.

\- You can fix things—you didn’t even need to use your abilities to fix the record player or the truck. That’s pretty spectacular. I can’t wait to see what you can do, too, because you’re already pretty amazing. Have you ever heard the word _fixer-upper_?

\- Uh-uh.

\- It’s what they call a brokedown old house that needs lots of repairs, or sometimes a car, like ours was. They sell it that way: this one’s a fixer-upper, perfect for the do-it-youselfer. Selling it to someone who can look at what’s wrong and not only knows what the solution is, but can carry it out. That could be what we were given these abilities for, and why I finally figured out how to control mine: we’re the fixers for this brokedown old fixer-upper world. 

\- Like how Bo said to take apart the sky? But that’s how we fix it up, too.

\- Like that. And we’re just getting started.


End file.
